Evergreen oak (Quercus aquifolioides Rehder & E.H. Wilson) forest is a type of subalpine sclerophyllous forest that is widely distributed in the subalpine zone of the Hengduan Mountains in southwestern China. In order to investigate the response of the forest's plant life-form characteristics to climate environment, the adaptability of evergreen oak forest to space, and the possible competition among species, we documented the life-form characteristics of vascular plants from 15 different Q. aquifolioides communities along an elevational gradient from 2200 to 3600 m on Balang Mountain, Wolong Nature Reserve, SW China. The plant life forms of the community were mainly composed of Phanerophytes (36.01%), followed by Chamaephytes (25.92%) and Geocryptophytes (29.36%), and Hemicryptophytes were the least common (0.92%). Phanerophytes played an important role, accounting for 21.74% to 50% of all species living on Balang Mountain, although its prevalence gradually decreased with increasing altitude. In contrast, Hemicryptophytes initially increased with increasing altitude but then decreased, and Geocryptophytes increased with altitude. Meanwhile, the proportion of Therophytes fluctuated with increasing altitude, accounting for between 8.94% and 5.67% of the species present. In addition, the abundance of the evergreen Phanerophytes plants decreased with increasing altitude, and the richness of evergreen Phanerophyte species was lower than that of deciduous Phanerophytes. At 3300 m, the Macro- and Mesophanerophytes accounted for only 3.09% and 4.26% of the species present, respectively, this indicated that life-form characteristics of evergreen oak forest were gradually weakening. Finally, comparative analysis of the plant life-form characteristics of different plant communities indicated that the Q. aquifolioides forest is different from other special types of evergreen broad-leaved forest.